ParcelQuest Support

Frequently Asked Questions

General Information

ParcelQuest data IS verified county assessor data and not derived from recorded documents keyed overseas. We're the sole provider of daily updated county assessor data and the only company that builds relationships with county departments in order to provide the most current data and parcel maps available anywhere.

The county assessor's office collects and maintains property ownership information as part of their data set. In the case of rental property (which may include a single unit dwelling, duplex, or apartment complex), the information available is limited to the actual owner of the property and does not include information related to rental tenants.

With a ParcelQuest Online subscription, you'll be able to see primary owner names and addresses for all 13 million properties in California. Our software will enable you to identify the owner of each parcel – both individuals and legal entities – as well as provide you with all relevant information regarding each property, including property use type, land value and property characteristics.

ParcelQuest data is directly updated DAILY from over 35 California county assessors' offices, and weekly or monthly from most of the others. Click here to view our map that shows the data update frequencies from specific counties and when it was last posted on the ParcelQuest site.

The listing below displays some of the more common ways in which ParcelQuest compares to other services:

Actual California County Assessor data

Our California parcel data IS verified county assessor data, not derived from recorded documents that have been keyed overseas. Creating databases by farming out unverified recorded documents to data entry plants in foreign countries is common among title insurance-based data services. However, our ability to build direct relationships with all of the county assessors and their staff throughout California ensures the data we provide is created by local experts intimately familiar with California properties.

Less expensive than most services!

With a subscription to either of our two monthly services, Standard or Navigator, there are no hidden fees or additional costs, making our subscription based service extremely affordable.

Accurate, Error Free, & Standardized

Because our data sets ALWAYS match the county assessors' records, our data IS their data. In fact, the data from the county assessors are uploaded directly into our system – eliminating the chance for human error. We then standardize all of the data across the entire state into an easy-to-use format so that our customers don't have to deal with 58 different data formats or variations.

Verified by the assessor's office

Our ownership data is updated and in sync with county tax records. We do not display new owner names until they are officially verified by the assessor's office. This eliminates errors in legal notifications and mailings that are common when using data keyed from unverified recorded documents.

Updated with Unparalleled Frequency

While other sources get assessor updates once a year, our data sets are updated DAILY from more than 35 counties, and WEEKLY or MONTHLY from most of the others. No other company’s data is updated from the assessor’s office as frequently as ours. See for yourself!

No. Compared to ParcelQuest, other products contain very little assessor data. But everyone knows the assessor is the best source of reliable property data, that’s why every company claims to have it. ParcelQuest is the only company getting daily updates of ownership, sales data, and property characteristics directly from assessors. Every other product on the market gets its data from a title insurance-based source. Title companies buy tons of recorded document images for their title businesses. Since they've already spent so much money on the documents, they don't want to spend even more buying high quality assessor data. So, they key data from the documents in their overseas data entry facilities instead. Needless to say, this doesn't give you the most reliable data. Typically, the only assessor data these companies buy is an annual file containing new parcel numbers and maybe a characteristics file every 3-5 years. That's why the assessors don't use products from these companies. Assessors use ParcelQuest.

Yes. ParcelQuest can answer your most pressing questions, because we offer critical property information from a wide variety of trusted government sources. For example, we get fire hazard data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF/CalFire), topography data from the US Geological Survey (USGS), soil data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and much more.

Subscriptions and Fees

ParcelQuest Online subscriptions are available in two service levels – 'Standard' and 'Navigator'. Detailed information regarding ParcelQuest's Online service subscriptions can be found here. If you're unsure about which subscription service best fits your needs, please call us at 888-217-8999 and we'll be happy to answer all of your questions.

No! While there are additional features that may cost extra, subscriptions to either ParcelQuest Standard or ParcelQuest Navigator allows access to all of the features contained within each of the service programs. There are no hidden fees! For a detailed list of the features that are specific to each subscription service, click here.

Technical Information

Yes! ParcelQuest offers a variety of tools to help you create mailing labels or export names and addresses for a mail merge, using either property address or the mailing address. ParcelQuest can be used for legal notifications, variances, use permits, and other notification purposes.